.... . . . 0 )\ . 0 0 '.,.,. ,,- THé TALK OF THé TOWN Notes and Comment T HEY'RE blasting deeper and deeper to make the foundation for the new Palazzo d'Italia op- posite St. Patrick's. Lolling about in the blasting zone yesterday noon, we wondered what would happen to Radio City if Mr. Rockefeller struck oil. W E hear from the most preposter- ous people-a lady, for instance, who says her cat pays no attention to the radio except when President Roose- velt speaks, when the animal rubs up against it and purrs. The forgotten Manx, probably. T HE rich may lead soft lives, but it's a strain just the same. Some- body has been telling us about young David Rockefeller, son of John D., Jr., and his propensity for eating in the Woolworth store across from the Public Library. Presumably a Rockefeller gets a sort of Haroun-al-Raschid feeling when he slips up to a 5-and-10 lunch counter; but a Haroun in the family just makes more work and worry for J1--ather. When John D., Jr., discov- ered that David was fond of the W 001- worth ice cream and sandwiches, he had them analyzed to see if they were fi t for a Rockefellian abdominal tract. The test was O.K. T HE world, with or without eagles, is in a topsy-turvy phase. The other Sunday we were in the country place of a friend of ours, sitting in the sun, when a sedan drove up before the gate. It was the sort of vehicle the New York Times, in its news columns, calls "a high-powered motor car." Two thousand dollars couldn't have bought it new. Out of it there clomb a shrivelled little country woman, who approached us gingerly, her face unbut- toned, her clothes ill-smelling. On her arm was a tiny market basket con- taining a couple of weary carrots and a box of moth-eaten blackberries. "Buy vegetables? " she asked. We shook our head. She hobbled back, got into the straight-eight, and disappeared into the middle distance of life's sunny snarl. I T is our custom to call up the Phone Company every four years and ask them to install a cutout switch in our apartment, so that we can prevent the \( II phone's ringing after ten o'clock at night. (Note: Ninety-two per cent of all phone calls after lOp .M. are from terrible people.) The company always refuses. We met a fellow the other day who told us why they always re- fuse. Cutout switches would ruin them, that's why. Statistical engineers, hired specially for the purpose, have proved exactly how ruinous cutout switches would be. Something like twenty per cent of all private home calls would be lost, and such a drop would mean disaster . You see, to he the big healthy enterprise it is, the Telephone Company has got to com- plete all the calls it possibly can, even though it disturb its subscribers in doing so, even though one party to the con- versation is unwilling. Now, let's see what that means! First of all, you must realize that if ever a corporation was owned by the masses, the Phone Company is. The owners of the Bell System and their families would make up a city larger than Philadelphia. And that's not the w hole story: there are, in the United States, 25,000,000 insurance-policy holders and bank depositors, including the little smarties with thrift accoun ts. All right, these people have a chip in the Phone Company, because practical- ly all banks and insurance companies are investors. So the Phone Company is a thoroughly communal bit of hocus- pocus. You, readers, are the owners. You are, and we are. And we're all letting ourselves be jangled to death, so the company can complete the call, so they can collect the five cents, and we the dividends. We should face this fact; not angrily or moodily, but squarely. G OSSIP NOTE: The editor of Fortune Magazine makes thirty dollars a week and carfare. N ow that toasts are again legal, we should make more of them. The toast is a forgotten art: nobody even attem pts ,to propose a toast except at his father-in-law's birthday party or at his own silver wedding. And then he ---ö' .i 41 always fumbles. W e should revive the . patriotic or national toast, and develop a facility comparable to that of the toastmasters in the time of Washington, Jefferson, and Adams, who used to raise their glasses and cry: "The com- merce of the United States-may it enjoy a free intercourse with an. na- tions, unshackled by treaties, unin ter- rupted by pirates! " Or) "Few laws,